Exactly one month after Apple released its new cheap phone, the iPhone 16e, Google unveiled its new cheap phone, the Pixel 9a. Unlike Apple, which raised the price of its former affordable model, the SE, Google kept the price the same. That makes Google’s phone $100 cheaper than Apple’s — which has been criticized for not being quite cheap enough.
Meta is buying AI chip startup Rivos for an unknown sum, as part of the social media company’s effort to decrease its reliance on graphics processing units from Nvidia, Bloomberg reports. Rivos was seeking funding in August at a $2 billion valuation. Meta has been spending exorbitant sums in an attempt to create AI models that are smarter than humans, an effort that’s involved investing in developing its own AI chips.
A new analysis by Bloomberg looked at wholesale electricity prices and found that in the past five years, areas near data centers saw their prices spike as much as 267%. More than 70% of the price increases took place in areas less than 50 miles from a data center.
As tech companies race to build colossal data centers, unprecedented energy demands from the projects are passing some of the costs on to consumers.
OpenAI brought in $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of this year, 16% higher than its total revenue in 2024, The Information reports, citing financial disclosures to shareholders. The ChatGPT maker also burned through $2.5 billion in the same time frame.
Currently the company is generating more than $1 billion in revenue each month, which puts it on track to reach its full-year projection for $13 billion in revenue and $8.5 billion in cash burn — a paltry sum compared to the $115 billion it expects to burn through 2029.
